So, it's no secret that the Linux desktop - at least, the GNOME-side of things - is a bit in a state of disarray. Unity hasn't exactly gone down well with a lot of people, and GNOME 3, too, hasn't been met with universal praise. So, what to do? Linux Mint, currently one of the most popular Linux distributions out there, thinks they are on to the solution with their latest release, Linux Mint 12.

I've heavily used Gnome 2.x and KDE 4.x over the past several years, and I was fairly happy with both of them. I had also used XFCE in the past, but it always frustrated me with some missing feature or drove me off with a nasty bug. But this time I just installed openSUSE 12.1 with XFCE, and I'm really impressed. XFCE 4.8 has matured into a really, really nice lightweight and highly configurable desktop. I can't believe how much it has improved. Definitely a good choice for Gnome 3.x refugees.